Gossamer
by BriarHawke
Summary: Arthas stopped in front of the man, his eyes falling to Jaina's ashen face, so calm in death. 'At peace,' some forgotten part of his mind whispered to him. "She is but dross, like all the others." AU.


**A/N:** Alternate universe, of course – and I kind of play fast and loose with the rules for removing the Helm of Domination, but that thing seriously impedes Arthas' ability to get it on, you know? Very light M rating because of a naughty sentence. Don't get excited.

* * *

"You have killed her."

The words came out oddly bemused as Arthas shifted his gaze from the death knight in front of him to the frail, limp figure in the knight's arms. Tangled blonde hair fell across the dead woman's face, but he would always recognize her - _their souls called to each other, _he remembered her - Jaina - saying once, a lifetime ago. A sneer tugged at the corner of his bloodless mouth at the thought.

"Yes, my liege," the death knight answered, head bowed. "She'd led a small group to the Citadel and we came upon them. They dispatched several of my brothers but we were victorious in the end." A moment's pause, and then, "We thought -"

"Yes, what _did_ you think?" Arthas snapped, suddenly irritated by a flicker of unbidden emotion deep within him. He pushed it down, pushed it away, as one would a cobweb, but it troubled him that it existed in the first place. He lifted his head which was all but obscured by his vile, black helm, and leaned forward, waiting for his knight's response.

"-That you would wish to raise her."

"Tell me, knight, what good _one weak-willed mage_ will do us? Is such a useless mortal worthy of ascending into Undeath?" Arthas pushed himself from his throne as he spoke and summoned his cursed blade Frostmourne, gleaming sickly blue in the shadows, to his side. "Or do you _presume_, merely because this fragile heap of bones and flesh meant something to a prince long dead, that I would wish to keep her safe from the gnashing teeth of the ghouls? Surely you do not _presume_ such weakness in your _king_, death knight?"

Arthas walked down the dais, pointing Frostmourne at the knight before him. The death knight, who still held the body of Jaina Proudmoore in his arms, fell to the floor on his knees, armor clattering against the polished stone.

"My liege, we only thought - since she was such a powerful sorceress in life - that her magic could serve your bidding in undeath." Arthas detected a note of panic in the man's voice - dead as they all were, they were not immune to fearing a second and more final death.

Arthas stopped in front of the man, his eyes falling to Jaina's ashen face, so calm in death. _At peace, _some forgotten part of his mind whispered to him. "She is but dross, like all the others."

"My king," the knight said, rising to his feet, grateful that he was spared Frostmourne's touch. "It will be as you wish."

He turned to leave the cavernous chamber, but Arthas called to him at the last moment.

"Stop," the king said, standing proud and motionless, but itching to seize Jaina from the knight's arms.

The man turned. "My liege?"

"Perhaps your idea has merit after all. The Alliance's desolation at seeing their revered Lady Proudmoore standing upon the balustrades of the Citadel will provide me at least a moment's amusement. Take her to my chambers."

"At your command, my liege."

"And death knight? Tell no one of what has transpired between you and I, lest the ghouls feast on _your_ limbs tonight."

Arthas wondered, as he watched the death knight disappear into the darkness, why he should still experience these small glimmers of human emotion. He did not fear them, of course, as they were but flies buzzing over carrion; but they should not _be_, as he had torn his own heart from his chest long ago. He had done so then as a remedy for the same human emotions that plagued him now. Pangs of regret, pangs of despair. Wretched, heartsick longing for the golden-haired mage that the knight carried to his chambers even now. All pathetically mortal feelings that the king thought vanquished when he tossed his heart, still bloody and pulsing, into Northrend's snowy wastes.

And yet, here he stood. If he could still feel anger, which he did indeed, and could still revel in his victories, then it would stand to reason that he would still sometimes feel echoes of those weaker human emotions. But that's all they were - _echoes_, given voice by the faint remnant of the Arthas That Was.

"Flies to carrion," he murmured under his helm. 

* * *

When he arrived in his chambers, he saw Jaina's body laid out on the saronite platform that ran the length of the room, the torn hem of her dress trailing over the edges. Blue light from the stained glass windows above them dappled across Jaina's pale, peaceful face.

_She looked like she was sleeping._

An image burned into his mind's eye at that; a fleeting scene in which he leaned over to kiss the corner of her soft mouth as they lay tangled in the sheets of her bed in Dalaran. She turned to him and her mouth met his, breasts pushing against his bare chest. Jaina laughed quietly against his eager lips.

_Why?_ he demanded of himself, unsettlingly close to losing control. _Why attempt to sway me with such memories?_

She is not yours to take!

came another voice, so like his own, though youthful and uncorrupted. A voice he had thought forever quelled when he tore out his heart.

_She cannot fall victim to the darkness that has claimed us._

Arthas hesitated and tensed, feeling a peculiar heaviness in his limbs. He wrenched the helm - suddenly too stifling - from his head (here in the heart of the Citadel was the only place he could do so without losing control of the teeming masses of Scourge he commanded.) It rolled behind an ornate pillar, leaving Arthas' bone-pale face - still handsome, though in a spectral mockery of his once golden beauty - bathed in the same dull light falling across Jaina's figure.

He turned and clutched at his head, grimacing, willing the voice of the Arthas That Was away. All he had lived for, all he had fought for, culminated in his place as the Lich King and he would not be held back by any vestige of humanity he still possessed. _Flies to carrion._ The pain in his limbs gradually subsided, along with the faint voice. _He_ was gone and in his place stood an Arthas more powerful than the other ever could have been, ruling over his kingdom at last, controlling vast armies. _This_ was the Arthas that would not be held back by mercy, _this_ was the Arthas who had been born anew in the blood-soaked ashes of Stratholme.

The Lich King whipped around to face Jaina again, had half a mind to throw her to the ghouls as he had earlier threatened. But no, no - and this was _his_ choice, not that of the Arthas That Was - he would raise her into undeath, defile her soul as his own had been defiled. He would present her to the Alliance, as lovely in death as she had been in life, as his Queen and he would watch while she joyfully raised the slaughtered Alliance troops before the survivors' eyes.

He approached the spot where she lay and knelt before her. How she had been slain was obvious - a deep and ragged gash ran from her breastbone to her ribs. She bled out long ago, much of it staining her once pristine robes dark. He ran his gauntleted hand over the hollow of her stomach (he remembered her laughter which so quickly turned to breathless gasps when he kissed that spot) and over the wound. As he did, a dark energy emanated from his hands, closing up the wound and snaking in tendrils over the rest of her body.

The Arthas That Was howled in the back of his mind, a primal noise full of anguish and loss. The king ignored it and continued his work, watching as Jaina's flesh turned from peach to snow.

Arthas had planned to meet her with a coldly impassive gaze, tell her of her new destiny and the role she would play in felling her former allies. But when Jaina's luminous eyes fluttered open (icy blue like the rest of his subjects but still unmistakably hers) and she turned to him, he faltered. He caressed the curve of her cheek, his black gauntlet a stark contrast to her smooth alabaster skin. She smiled, and it was the same sweet smile Arthas had always loved, but he knew to the fearful living such a smile would be unsettling. She reached her own cold hand out to brush away a tendril of gossamer-white hair from Arthas' face. He shuddered under a touch he hadn't felt in years.

"Jaina," he whispered.

Their lips met then in a kiss, tentative at first, then hungry - they had been starved of each other for too long. Arthas wondered idly if Jaina had come to the Citadel looking for something like this. She had always been unpredictable - she could have come to dispatch him as easily as she could have come to offer herself as a willing sacrifice. The reason no longer mattered. She laughed against him, like she had on that night in Dalaran, and pulled away, looking up at him with adoring, dead eyes.

"Arthas," when she spoke, her voice was hollow and sepulchral. Like his. Like _him._ "My king."


End file.
